


Ab Intra

by swordsainted



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, One with the Sky Zine, a bit of a short character study, and sora doesn't give himself enough credit, everyone thinks about sora, from the perspectives of those who see sora's heart most clearly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29907156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordsainted/pseuds/swordsainted
Summary: What, exactly, makes a person?It’s a very old question, perhaps even ages-old, with many answers that people wholeheartedly believe in, for better or for worse. Some say it is the spirit, others memory and influence; still others believe in predestination and fate above individual personality or determination, and still more insist that the way we exercise free will speaks most to one’s nature.As if that question isn’t hard enough, people also often ask,what makes a hero?
Relationships: Kairi & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Riku & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Roxas & Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Kudos: 5





	Ab Intra

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was my contribution to the Sora-centric One with the Sky Zine (2020). I had a lot of great fun working on the zine with everyone and getting to think about which parts of Sora really stood out to the other characters! Thanks very much for reading!

**ABSTRACTION.**

What, exactly, makes a person?

It’s a very old question, perhaps even ages-old, with many answers that people wholeheartedly believe in, for better or for worse. Some say it is the spirit, others memory and influence; still others believe in predestination and fate above individual personality or determination, and still more insist that the way we exercise free will speaks most to one’s nature.

As if that question isn’t hard enough, people also often ask,  _ what makes a hero? _

Ironically enough, this answer seems to come more readily than the other. Pure intentions, people always seem to say. Selflessness. Someone who others admire, who fights for a good cause, martyr-knight-king.

Almost always, they are only heroes because of how others perceive them. How much they _ believe  _ in who they want them to be.

In Sora’s case, he has always been defined by how others see his heart.

**DEFINITION: THE FIRST.**

One of Kairi’s earliest childhood memories is of Sora, of a day that had led her to decide that she was going to be friends with both he and Riku.

A day where she’d seen the truth of both of them and accepted it, flaws and all.

They’d been fighting, she remembers that—they’ve always been that way, push and pull.  _ Boys will be boys,  _ their mothers chuckle, but the lost little girl from an entirely different world isn’t so sure about that.

She thinks that it has a lot less to do with their being boys and a lot more to do with them being who they were. Sora and Riku were each other’s greatest motivator, and each other’s greatest opponent besides. They’re young, and they frustrate each other, both of them holding an unforgivable advantage in  _ something. _

She doesn’t remember anymore what they’d been fighting about—being a child is like that. It’s impressions, feelings, colors, all the things that made an impression on the mind without necessarily understanding what’s behind it.

She remembers that Riku had made him cry.

She’d hated that, that strange two-way pang of anxiety that had pushed her to console both of them, but at the end of it all Riku was faster and he’d started walking back down the beach with his head down and his fists clenched tight before Sora had wept.

(She still thinks even now that if he’d seen that, he would have stayed, and that Sora had waited until he couldn’t.)

She’d asked him why he was crying, if he had been hurt when he and Riku had shoved at each other so clumsily and petulantly, and he’d shaken his head and told her that he was sad.

Her first thought had been that his feelings had been hurt, even harder to fix, but no.

He was sad because he knew Riku had been sad all week and that he wasn’t really angry at Sora but he didn’t know how to make it better, but he would, he  _ would,  _ watch him, okay? He’d figure it out somehow!

Kairi had blinked at him, the way salted tears curved down his flushed cheeks, clinging to the skin as tightly as his resolve, and when she’d reached out awkwardly in the way that children do to pat in an attempt at comfort at his messy hair, shot gold with the light and sun-warm, she’d thought that this boy was full of kindness.

She still does. It’s one thing she’s always been completely sure of, never once doubted or questioned, even when Sora thought himself cruel or careless.

He’s always tried  _ so hard  _ for  _ everyone,  _ and she loves him for it.

For Kairi, at least, the sum of Sora’s heart is its boundless generosity.

**DEFINITION: THE UNDEFINED.**

Naminé doesn’t know who she is; that’s part of the problem, isn’t it, that she’s made up of two people all at once and just doesn’t  _ know.  _ She isn’t sure why her not-heart aches or why she feels the things she does, especially when she isn’t supposed to.

They tell her that she’s empty.

She doesn’t disagree, exactly, but she sort of wishes she wasn't just a shell. It’s almost crushing, the way they look at her. She’s a curiosity, a useful novelty, something  _ less,  _ and so she keeps trying, and trying hard.

Naminé is told to rewrite Sora, so she does.

She can’t help but wonder why it’s so important for her to change his memories. She doesn’t realize until much later that they are what makes him who he is, that his mistakes and victories are all little pieces of the puzzle she is slowly, methodically taking apart and painting over.

She’s quiet when she works, fingers pushing waxy color over paper, almost clumsy in her focus as she tries to understand. Her thoughts are muddled, slow; the deconstruction of a heart is a difficult business, full of emotional setbacks and hairpin turns.

She believes what she is told, that she doesn’t have enough heart to understand, and she tries to push her way through all of the obstacles of it, shoving and shoving at diamond-bright pieces of him that simply will not give way.

Why is Sora so special to the Organization? Why is he the hero? And if  _ he’s  _ the hero, and she’s taking him apart, what is  _ she? _

She craves the answers,  _ needs  _ them with a fervor she can’t explain— _ know thyself, and to thine own self be true  _ except he isn’t she isn’t and she’s never had a heart—and she drags him towards her with the innocent futility of a child begging to know why. If she can just see him, speak to him, maybe, just maybe, she’ll finally understand.

It takes a hundred tiny steps, but she finally understands, or at least she thinks she does, fingers pressing to the coarse paper of her sketchbook as if it breathes on its own, shudders with a burgeoning heartbeat.

Sora builds himself according to his friends. He sees his worth not in his own accomplishments, but in what he has helped them achieve, in making them smile.

It’s horribly simple, and crushingly altruistic, and she sees him.

Sora is loyal to a fault, and people trust him,  _ always,  _ with their lives and with their hearts. It’s beautiful, and when she sees it, she can’t seem to find the strength to break any more of the shards of memory she’s struggled so very hard with for so very long.

Naminé doesn’t want to be a villain anymore, and when she flings herself in between Sora and Larxene, she thinks  _ me, me, I’m going to be a person too, even if I’m only a shadow, I want to help him _ —

The answers don’t matter nearly as much as putting him back together, she decides, and even though she can barely see through her tears once he steps into his pod, she knows how to fix everything.

After all, the warmth and light in how he looks at all of his friends—new and old—is a solid foundation to build on.

**DEFINITION: THE XIII.**

Roxas doesn’t know all that much about Sora, other than that he’s pretty sure he hates him.  _ So what  _ if they have the same eyes, always staring upwards and full of sky,  _ so what  _ if he’s his Nobody?

He defines Sora by opposites, everything that he doesn’t have inside him; he is far too acutely aware of everything he is and isn’t, everything that the other Organization members want him to be. He is full of something like fear, but not quite—because what if he is never like Sora?

Worse, what if he  _ is? _

He is bitter, and the flashes of memories that aren’t him only make it worse, gritty and gnawing at his mind in the dead of night. He finds he sleeps less as they become more frequent, glimpses at familiar and strange worlds through eyes that match his on the surface but never in the depths.

Roxas thinks about it each and every day, lays out the things he knows about himself, puzzles the concept of Sora together by understanding what he isn’t.

Roxas is impulsive, brash, quick to anger; Sora can rush headlong into things too, but he does it when he’s full of concern, or excitement. Roxas is loud, verbose in his discontent. Sora tries to speak calmly even when his emotions are in turmoil. It all fits together, piece by little piece, differences and similarities until all Roxas can think is  _ Nobody, Nobody, I’m Nobody _ —

But at the end of the day, he finds he can’t hate Sora, and that perhaps makes him most bitter of all. He can see the good in him, and he can’t hold a grudge, even though he’d dearly like to—he wants to scream and rage and fight Sora, tell him that he is  _ somebody,  _ and yet he knows deep down that if he did, Sora would agree. He can’t hate him. It’s the one thing that he’s sure that he’s inherited, because it irks him to no end.

Sora is  _ unconditionally forgiving,  _ and that is what makes his heart beautiful in Roxas’ eyes, as loath as he is to admit it.

**DEFINITION: THE ENSHROUDED.**

Riku sees the shades in Sora better than anyone else; a critical eye is the most discerning, after all, and he has been envious though he knows he shouldn’t be for many years indeed. He has looked after Sora for as long as he can remember, unable to stop after his fingers first closed around Terra’s Keyblade.

He has always struggled to mold himself into a hero.  _ Moderation, patience,  _ he whispers under his breath.  _ Strength, determination!  _ Watching the goodness bloom golden in Sora without the slightest effort is a kick in the face, spurring him to break his own limits one by one. He succeeds, growing recklessly, ambition unchecked.

None of that changes the fact that he believes that he will never be as good as Sora.

The darkness changes Riku—changes them both, really, and he can’t tell if he resents or loves it. Progress is progress, for better or worse, and he learns to accept it. What he doesn’t accept is the loss of Sora in his life.

Riku walked away only to chase his friend in turn, desperate, seeking, crying out his love without shame now for the ones dear to his heart; he will tear apart every world if he must, and he knows now that that same dedication is what sets Sora apart in the end and what he admires, too.

Much like Kairi, Riku sees Sora’s instinct to put everyone else first. He will never hesitate, and he will put himself on the line again and again if it gives others a chance to be happy.

Riku thinks he isn’t like that (he is, a little, but he won’t believe it). He is selfish, a snarling thing in the dark that grasps for what it wants,  _ needs,  _ craves with shuddering breath.

He needs Sora.

Riku sees all of the pieces that all the others do, clear as the island water and deeper than the sky, but he sees  _ Sora,  _ too, the fears and hesitations and doubts and how he forges ahead anyway.

It is more than he can hope to comprehend, some nights.

**SUMMATION.**

Sora has tried to answer many times through his journey who he is, what he wants; the truth is simply that he doesn’t know. All he knows is that he wants to find his friends, and everything else? It’s just an aside, as awe-inspiring, and dramatic, and life-changing as it might be.

He’d always wanted to see other worlds, sure, but Riku had been the one who’d wanted to  _ change  _ them.

He isn’t completely oblivious. He can tell that he’s stuck in a weird sort of fairy tale, a particularly bizarre coming-of-age story like the ones that used to be read to him as bedtime stories; that’s probably the hardest thing to compute, really. Everyone seems to think he’s a hero.

He’s just not sure he agrees.

Sora believes he’s weak, that by entering into their lives at all he’s bringing bad luck, misery in his wake as the darkness spreads over each and every world it can reach with grasping hands.

Cause and effect is not so simple, but deep down he  _ knows  _ that it’s his fault.

It’s his fault that Riku turned away, it’s his fault that  Kairi, Naminé, Roxas, and all the others are drawn into his battles, and it’s  _ his fault  _ when they cry. When they thank him, he always smiles, though he’s never done enough in his view.

He is too guilty to see that the way that he always shields his companions from everything he can is what makes him the strongest person they’ve ever known.

One by one they look at him, all of these people tied by fate and circumstance and bound into each other’s lives, near and far, part of one another and yet not, and they see him. They sculpt his image in their minds, defined in light and shadow alike, the beautiful crystal-bright facets of his heart shining bright and marvelous and  _ unique  _ to each of them.

He may fall, but together they rebuild him in perfect clarity every time he stumbles, the goodness in him plain for all to see.

He’s their hero, even if he isn’t his own.


End file.
